Treasures
by Hive Mentality
Summary: John visits the grave a couple times a week, sitting with his back against Sherlock's tombstone and just talking to him about his life. He leaves things there for him occasionally, and every time he comes back they're gone. Very mild S/J, could be gen.


The first time John leaves something at Sherlock's grave, he doesn't really want to. Flowers, to John, seemed far too impersonal. Everyone gave flowers. It was ordinary. Dull.

Sherlock wouldn't have liked that.

It was Harry's idea—actually, Clara had made the suggestion to her, and she to John—that he leave a stone. Clara grew up in a Jewish family, and although she didn't practice the religion herself, she was familiar with the custom of leaving a stone to honor the memory of the dead.

John doesn't have any stones, so he ventures into their old flat and digs up an old T-12 vertebrae from one of the boxes he had yet to go through and takes that to the grave instead. It was more their style, anyway.

He wasn't sure what he'd expected when he returned the next day, but for a moment after he discovers the vertebrae missing he can only see red. The feeling passes quickly, and he does his best to pretend that it is Sherlock who took it and not one of the children he often sees playing nearby.

Mrs. Hudson actually helps him find the next gift to bring. While digging about in Sherlock's room—John can't go in there, for she is much stronger than he could ever be—she found a well-worn novel tucked away in the back of Sherlock's sock index.

Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. John remembered Sherlock telling him about the book quite clearly. "It was the first mystery I'd ever solved." Sherlock said. "I'd cracked the case by page thirty. Not a real mystery, of course, and a bit sloppy, but that's to be expected at age five."

John hadn't been sure he believed Sherlock was reading Agatha Christie by age five, but the story had amused him none the less, and the well worn pages of the book had proven that Sherlock at least subconsciously had something he so often mocked—sentiment. His first case solved.

That morning he visited Sherlock, sat with his back to the grave, and peeled the book open to page one. "In the corner of a first-class smoking carriage, Mr. Justice Wargrave, lately retired from the bench, puffed a cigar and ran an interested eye through the political news in the Times."

Later, when the sun finally set over the cemetery and the night became too dark to read and the chill to much to tolerate, John had left the book at the base of the tombstone, that Sherlock may finish reading the last few chapters himself.

The next time John leaves something for Sherlock, its one of John's old files for a blog he'd drafted but never posted. It was too personal, he'd thought, to post online, and boring besides for anyone that wasn't working the case. John knew Sherlock would enjoy reading it—he'd never let him see the file before.

It was dated long before their relationship had developed into what it is—was—in the end. This was the first case where John realized that he just might be falling in love with the consulting detective, and his heart twisted at the thought of that time. The thrill he'd felt, and also the apprehension. The time wasted. To the file, he clips a small scrap of paper, torn from the back of a receipt, and writes a short message. I miss you.

The doctor is excited to find the file missing the next visit—he doesn't care if the wind took it, as it most likely had, in his mind it will always be Sherlock—and he notices that he feels just a little bit better. Nowhere near good, but it's a start. The doctor barely missed the small scrap of paper, swept to the adjacent grave by the wind, and the shorthand written there. I'm sorry.

He's been leaving mementos regularly—once or twice a month, whenever he can—and visiting twice a week for nearly a year before he accidentally leaves too much. His jacket, draped over the tombstone and forgotten in the unusually warm spring air. When he runs back, neither the jacket nor the hand-written blog—he doesn't blog publically anymore, just for Sherlock—are anywhere to be found, although he thinks for a moment that he sees the quickly-retreating back of a woman with long braided hair near the cemetery's western gates.

The illusion is broken, and suddenly John hates himself for leaving such personal things—things meant for Sherlock alone—for a stranger to take and have her way with.

John stops leaving thing after that, but continues to visit the grave as often as he can. Talking to it—about cases he'd read about and thought Sherlock would like, how Mycroft and Mrs. Hudson were fairing, what he'd had for breakfast—and pretending that there was nothing wrong with him; that he wasn't crazy.

He does this until he's run out of things to say, and waits hours after that, just enjoying the quiet, before finally he decides its time to leave. It's on his way to the exit that he sees something hanging over a low tree branch directly in his path.

John makes his way over, only to recognize the pattern of his lost coat. He grabs it, feeling strangely surreal in this situation and wondering how this could get any stranger. The unasked question is answered quickly, when he checks the pocket to find a neatly folded piece of stationary.

"I'm not dead. Lets have dinner." –S


End file.
